A Possible Answer to a Question I've Seen People Asking about SPN 3.01 + Bears and Legal Issues

[heidi]

Well, maybe not an answer so much as my take on a plotline, but it's

I've seen some discussion of why Isaac and Tamara blamed Sam and Dean for the demons' escape through the Devil's Gate and I've been pondering on it today...

Kripke gave an interview about S3 where he talked about the moral issues that come up in the show.

"For us the best episodes of Supernatural are the ones about shades of gray and the ones where the decisions the boys have to make are morally troubling to them and about the people they meet who have gone way beyond them in the crossing of moral lines."

Kripke says this concept of blurred lines of moral issues played a part in the decision to introduce two new regular recurring characters into Supernatural in season three.

Sam and Dean should always be running into hunters and other people whose moral line is much more blurred than their own, Kripke says of the creation of Ruby. "She is one of those hunters whose moral line is a lot more blurred than that of the boys."

So last night, we saw Ruby kill three innocent humans who just happened to be posessed by demons, and we saw Isaac and Tamara blame the boys for letting the demons out in Wyoming.

I think there's a relationship between both of these situations, and they tie into Kripke's statement about other hunters who have crossed moral lines.

Dean, as we recall from S1, was upset about killing an innocent person who was possessed by the YED's "son", and both he and Sam were discombobulated about killing Meg. And of course, Sam wouldn't kill John just to get to the YED, even when John was telling him to, and we can also talk about Sam not killing Jake when he first had the chance, because even though he had the opportunity, he considered that it wasn't the "right" thing to do - and of course he got killed for it. And then there's Madison, which is, er, an episode all to itself.

So I'm not sure the boys' lines are the same as they've been since, say, Episode One, but clearly, the boys - and Bobby - would rather exorcise than kill, whereas Tamara, we're led to believe, kills the guy possessed by Envy because she is still so angry and yes, wrathful about what he did to Isaac. It's no coincidence that the two humans who survived the possessions were the ones who were dealt with by Dean and Bobby.

So it's possible that Isaac and Tamara have heard some truthful information out of Wyoming - demons do lie when it suits their purpose, and it wouldn't surprise me if they have a way to infiltrate the hunters' network to try to knock people off guard, keep them from working together, set hunters against each other, etc. So let's just presume that somehow, hunters know that Sam had the opportunity to kill Jake who went on to open the Gate, but chose not to, and that the boys - and Bobby - chose to save Ellen's life rather than kill Jake just before he opened the Gate - and that is why they blame both boys (although possibly allotting slightly more blame to Sam?) because a hunter with a moral line in a different place would have allowed Ellen to die, or would have killed Jake well before he ever made it to the Gate. I mean, technically, the boys let Jake walk right by them in the cemetery and they could have shot him in the head then and there. And they didn't, because their moral compasses instructed them to try and stop Jake without killing him.

In contrast, for Ruby, killing isn't a last resort - she could have brought a supersoaker of holy water into the house and slowed the Sins down that way, then exorcised them, if she really just wanted to Help Sam and Send The Bastards Back To Hell - she didn't need to kill the human hosts. It's her Option of Choice, at least from what we've seen at this point, and that's a sharp contrast to what we saw Dean and Bobby do last night.

So yeah, there are hunters who are blaming Sam and Dean, not because they personally think the boys opened the gate, but because they don't have as much of a problem with killing a human to stop a demon.

Maybe?

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In other news, my friend laughingirl is doing another auction of bears and boxing gloves signed by celebs to raise money for the Avon Breast Cancer Foundation, and among this year's items are boxing gloves signed by the cast of Numb3rs, Amy Acker (who SPN fans might remember from Dead in the Water), Ian McKellan, Neil Patrick Harris, Nicholas Brendan, Anthony Head, Oliver Phelps, Paul McGann, Hayden Panettiere, Devon Murray, Alan Tudyk and various Buffy/Angel alums. Definitely worth a look and a bid!

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And rivkat has asked on fandom_lawyers for anyone anyone injured or affected by overreaching copyright warnings to get in touch with the Intellectual Property Law Clinic at American University (which is my law school alma mater). Click the link to the comm to learn more.

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Ooooh, and shinyshiny featured the perfume I use today! It's so yummy, if you like sweet candy-ish scents, which anyone who remembers my obsession with Lush's Snow Fairy last winter will recall will know I do.

Comments

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

I know it sounds really corny and cliched but they are out killing the evil yeah for their own reasons but the end result is that their out there protecting innocent people whether they set out to do that or not.

It feels a little intellectually lazy of them to kill the host without making any effort to do otherwise. But... didn't we see a little of this sort of moral quandry in the HP books where the wizarding world had to differentiate between those who supported Voldemort out of their own free will, and those who were under Imperio? And the Minister of Magic after Scrimgeour was under Imperio, wasn't he, and still got killed at the Battle and nobody seems to have cared that he was basically a walking zombie and got killed for *that*, not even Percy when he did his adorable Resignation One-Liner.

So, huh.